I Wander Through a Dream
by Captain Silence
Summary: Elia is left alone in a cruel world with nothing but a colossal weight and an orphan child.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This note is to basically tell that this is strictly AU, in which Elia and Rhaegar have been ruling the Seven Kingdoms for about a year when Robert's Rebellion takes place; killing Rhaegar and Lyanna but no Lannisters attempt to take King's Landing, therefore landing Elia with a baby Jon.**

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 _ **I Wander Through a Dream**_

Rhaegar had never been perfect. Their marriage hadn't been perfect, either. But he'd been good to her. Up until he met Lyanna Stark, then she occupied his mind and Elia did not. Not the woman who had bore him children, but a girl he'd met at the tourney of Harrenhal. Sometimes, Elia wondered if she had done something wrong to make him turn away from her and seek the comfort of another woman. She never mentioned these thoughts to anyone, fearing that they would call her out on her foolishness, or worse yet, tell her that she _had_ done something wrong. She didn't know which was worse.

Though, she supposed it didn't matter now. A guard had heard that Rhaegar had whispered a name before his death and she knew that name wasn't her's. It was Lyanna's. Lyanna who had died in the Tower of Joy. Lyanna who had died in the Tower of Joy from childbirth.

Elia swallowed, the tips of her fingers at her lips. She glanced over her shoulder at the crib at the far side of the room. What was she to do? The child was innocent. He wasn't his father or his mother. She had no quarrel with the child. She could not blame him for her broken heart. That had been her own fault and hers alone.

She remembered when the kingsguard had come back with a child curled in his cloak. He had presented the child to Elia, the only surviving member of the royal household. "His Royal Highness, King Rhaegar of House Targaryen is dead. We found him and Robert of House Baratheon dead by the river. The Lady Lyanna Stark died shortly after giving birth." His eyes had flickered to the child in his arms at that point. "What would you have me do, My Queen?"

It had been at that moment, Elia realized her situation. Her husband, father to her two children, was dead; his lover was dead and now a member of his kingsguard was holding out to her the child that had come from his unfaithfulness. With a shaking voice, she had asked the guard to take the child to the nursery. After he was gone, Elia had collapsed to her chair beside the Iron Throne and wept into her hands. No one disturbed her.

Now she moved over to the crib and slowly lowered herself down to her knees. She tucked her skirts about her and slowly reached into the crib to stroke her fingers across his tiny head. Her throat constricted and she swallowed hard. She closed her eyes tight, her hand dangling lifelessly against the side of the crib. The door to the room creaked open and Elia glanced over, swallowing and blinking to rid her eyes of tears in case it was someone she would need to impress.

Rhaenys' dark Dornish hair fell across her shoulders, seeming even darker than normal against the pale lavender of her dress. "Mama?" she questioned, moving further into the room. Elia shifted and opened her arms and her daughter hurried over and collapsed into them, burying her face against Elia's chest, her head tucked under Elia's chin.

Elia tightened her arms around her daughter, holding her tight to her, leaning her face into Rhaenys' hair and closing her eyes. She wanted to offer comfort to her daughter, but her words of such comfort had all but dried up. She didn't even know how to comfort herself, let alone her little girl. She felt a flash of shame, and her arms tightened once more. What sort of mother - what sort of _Queen_ \- was she if she could not even bring comfort to her own daughter in times of need?

Another realization struck hard and knocked her further down into her hole of despair. Aegon, only a babe, would be king but until that time, she was Queen Regent. Rhaegar had been the king and he had acted the part. After Aerys' death nearly a year ago, Rhaegar had risen and the people had loved him more than she had thought possible. Now, he was dead and she was what remained. She, a Dornish princess - _Queen_ \- who was out of her element in every way.

A crown was heavy and she was frail. She didn't think she could withstand the weight of such a crown; neither the actual object nor the power it represented. She had always thought that she would be the first to die out of the pair of them, that Rhaegar would rule long after the Seven had come for her. Oh, how she wished she had been right.

She tightened her arms around her daughter, kissing her hair before leaning back to look at her. Her daughter's cheeks were wet with tears and her bottom lip trembled as Elia brushed tenderly at the tracks left on Rhaenys' dark Dornish skin. "It will all be okay, my sweetling," she murmured gently, offering her daughter a sad smile. "Why don't you go ready for sleep?" she suggested gently, "I'll come see you before you fall asleep."

Rhaenys offered a faint nod and walked out of the room, once again leaving Elia alone with the Stark child. She crouched once more at his side and this time, his dark eyes, those of a true Northerner, looked back at her. He reached up with his pudgy fingers and grasped hold of Elia's pointer finger. Emotion welled in the back of her throat and in her eyes and she fought to push it down as the innocent babe pulled her finger into his mouth and sucked at it.

Elia slowly took back her finger and slid her arms beneath him and lifted him. She held him to her chest, bouncing him lightly in her arms, holding in her tears. She hummed a soft melody to him until he fell back asleep. When he was safely in his crib and Elia had kissed Rhaenys and Aegon good night, she went up to the coop and she composed a letter to Dorne. She needed her brother; she needed Oberyn.

There was one person that maybe she wanted more than Oberyn but that person wasn't someone she'd ever see again and she cried herself to sleep in her large, lonely bed.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hey guys, I'm not dead! I had a pocket of muse for this, so I typed out a quick little chapter. I hope it was alright, though I will preface this by saying I am very tired and I'm probably going to regret just throwing it up like this as it's probably quite bad. But, I hope some of you like it as I did get so many requests to write more to this. I wish I could say I would have more regular updates, though I can't promise that. THOUGH. I am working on something original that I plan to self publish as soon as I can catch up on my sleep and finish editing it.**

 **EDIT: I apologize for the mix up in names.**

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 **Illuminate**

When they brought his body back, Elia wanted to refuse. She wanted to lock herself away and forget her duties but she couldn't. He would have wanted more from her. So, she went. She allowed Ashara Dayne to help her into a black Southern gown of mourning, a large Targaryen pendant settled between her breast. Her lady in waiting helped her braid her hair up tight to her head, leaving only a strand to fall at the side of her youthful face. Looking in the mirror, she could hardly see herself in the reflection. She saw a woman put together and strong, when inside she was melting, falling apart. In the mirror, her eyes were vacant, her lips drawn. Inside, tears bled from her heart and all she wanted to do was cry.

When she left her chamber, she jutted out her chin and held her head high as she walked down to the great hall. Her skirts rustled about her feet as she walked and she focused on the brush of the fabric against her skin instead of the emotion building in the pit of her stomach. Despite her wish to stay on the opposite end of the keep from it, she eventually reached the large doors to the hall. The guards shifted and pulled them open soundlessly, bowing their heads to her. She took a breath and brushed her hands across the wrinkles in her skirts. She closed her eyes, then opened them. Lifted her head, and entered the room. Instantly, her eyes fell upon him and her resolve crumbled, each step littering it across the ground. Her footsteps grew more hurried, more faltering until her legs gave out beside the stone table, a soft cry falling from her trembling lips.

They'd done their best to clean him up and clothe him in his finest, fine red robes, a deep blood red and a part of her wondered if it was to hide the damage that had been done to him. His silver hair was laid out across his lean chest, the same chest she would always lean her face into whenever he embraced her. As her knees struck the floor, she almost expected his body to heave a breath it had been holding, but he remained static, unmoving. _Dead._ Elia sucked in a breath through her mouth, and it shuddered. She swallowed, shaking her head and trying to hold back the unstoppable tide of emotion as she reached forward with shaking fingers to clasp his cold, dead hand.

" _I'm sorry,_ " she whispered, voice catching in the back of her throat, the first of the tears slipping down her cheeks and dripping off her chin. "I… I don't know if I can do this…" Her hand rose to press to the side of his face, hesitating before alighting to the skin. A sob broke free. He was cold. He was supposed to be a Targaryen, supposed to be _fire_ , supposed to always be a source of warmth for her. " _How can you expect me to do this?_ " She leaned her forehead against their jointed hands, closing her eyes tight and weeping softly for the life she had lost, knowing the dawn of her new one was bathing her in it's half light.

Long after the flames had died and night had fallen, Elia found herself back at the side of the child. She had received a raven back from her brother and she read it while sitting beside the crib, her eyes strangely dry as though her tear ducts had been brutally carved from her and thrown into the fire with her husband and her heart. Oberyn would arrive in King's Landing in nearly five months and Elia's heart clenched knowing she'd have to do without him for that long.

"Ashara," she said in a emotionless voice that was foreign to her, "we will find the child a new home."

Her beautiful maid, with her long dark hair and violet eyes, arched a perfect brow from the doorway to the nursery. "Are you so sure?" questioned the Dayne woman.

Elia closed her eyes. "What am I to do with the bastard child of my husband and a Northern woman?"

"Will you not raise him? While he is not of your own blood, he is of His Highness'. Whether you wish it or not, your fate is tied to his." Her head jerked to the sleeping child. The wet nurse had told Elia the child had fussed all day and it had taken hours to get him to sleep.

Elia thought back to the time she and Oberyn had visited Casterly Rock to see the monster born to Joanna and Tywin Lannister, a monster that took Joanna's life in childbirth. She remembered the pause from her brother, the way his eyes slid from the child in Cersei's arms, the small child with his bulbous head, much too big for his little body, but no less a child than he, Cersei or Elia themselves had been. She remembered the tenderness in his voice when he said: " _That is not a monster, it's just a baby."_

She closed her eyes and let out a sigh. How could she be so cold? Shame fell across her shoulders with a weight worse than any crown. How could she toss out an innocent child? His father's signs were not his. She had no right to place that burden on him. "He cannot stay if he has no name," she said, a little spark of life in her voice and when she opened her eyes to look at Ashara, the other woman had a small smile on her lips.

"And what will you call him?"

Elia looked again to the small body sleeping in the crib. She placed a small hand against it, tilting her head. Names held so much importance, she knew. He had no house name, could not take neither Stark nor Targaryen, not unless he was legitimized. She could not legitimize a bastard that was not hers, though in that moment, her heart burned. She knew Westeros was cruel, she knew what his birth and life would mean and she was aware of the strife his remaining in King's Landing would case. She sighed lightly, lowering herself slowly to her knees, leaning her arms against the wood.

"He will be a Waters." Her heart faltered at having to name him in such a way, and she wondered what his parents would have called him, what Rhaegar would have proposed, even what Lyanna would have named him. Then, slowly, she stood. She glanced at her hands and swallowed, before walking from the room and returning to her (her heart broke every time she called it 'her's' instead of 'theirs', Seven help her) chambers. She pulled the ink and a strip of parchment from the desk and she pressed it to the paper, writing quickly before she lost her nerve. When she was finished, she rolled it and turned, holding it out to Ashara. "Please, see that this is sent to Winterfell as soon as you can."

Ashara Dayne bowed and left. When the door closed, Elia lowered herself into the chair and her head into her hands.

Eddard Stark was at the battlements of Winterfell when a servant to the keep came to him with the letter from King's Landing. He took the rolled up piece of paper from the boy and nodded, turning into the cold breeze before unrolling it.

 _Lord Stark,_

 _I am told you were present at the Tower of Joy and so you are aware of the matter of the child… A child that connects us in ways I fear, if I may be honest. This child is without a name and while he will adopt the bastard name of 'Waters', for I will not place blame upon your sister, I do wish for your word. I will name him what you wish me to, and you will know him. He is, after all your nephew. I will not take that from you, Lord Stark._

 _Queen Regent_

 _Elia Martell_

He burned the letter after he had read it, though his reply was written quick and he sent the raven himself. There would be no keeping the secret in King's Landing. The nameless child was not the Queen Regent's blood, that much was clear. He would be blatantly Northern beside her Dornish children, but he could understand her wish to keep the child with her, besides how much he wished to raise his sister's child as his own.

 _The boy would be safer in the North,_ he wrote to her. _But… Lyanna was fond of 'Jon'._


End file.
